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Reprinted from the 
Catholic World Magazine 



An extra copy of this pamphlet 
may be obtained by sending ten cents 
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The Leader. 



A MONTHLY FOR 



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CHRISTMAS GIFT 

TO CHILDREN 
IS A YEAR'S BOUND VOLUME OF 

THE LEADER 

FOR 1903, 

Containing many interesting Stories, short 
and serial ; Historical Papers ; the Saints 
of the Month ; numerous Puzzles, etc., etc., 
with a wealth of Illustrations. 

The volutne, Handsomely Bound, will be sent 
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SI. 25. 

ADDRESS 

t"h:k IvKAder, 

Box 2, Station PJ, NE^WYORK CITY. 



AN EPISCOPALIAN DEMAND FOR CHRISTIAN SCHOOLS. 

BY REV. THOMAS McMILLAN, C.S.P. 

AVERY considerable number of American citizens, both 
native and foreign born, have felt it quite consistent with 
their conception of the duty of patriotism to urge a change in 
the educational system by law established in the United States. 
While Catholics have made the largest sacrifices in defence of 
their convictions regarding the necessity of combining religion 
with education, they have had a fair share of praise from lead- 
ing thinkers in other denominations. Nothing could be stronger 
as an endorsement of the parish school than these words from 
the late Dr. Hodge, a Presbyterian divine and one of the 
ablest professors at Princeton : 

" Under these problems there lurks the most tremendous an(J 
most imminent danger to which the interests of our people will 
ever be exposed, in comparison with which the issues of slavery 
and of intemperance shrink into insignificance. 

" In view of the entire situation, shall we not all of us who 
really believe in God, give thanks to him that he has preserved 
the Roman Catholic Church in America to-day true to that 
theory of education upon which our fathers founded the public 
schools of this nation, and from which they have been so 
madly perverted ? " 

Here is a denial of many false statements in educational 
literature to the effect that Catholics are demanding something 
inconsistent with the American ideal. Quite the contrary is the 
case. Dr. Hodge with full knowledge affirms that the Roman 
Catholic Church in America to-day has preserved that theory 
of education upon which our fathers founded the schools of this 
nation. Which is right. Dr. Hodge or the critic who accuses 
Catholics of being unpatriotic in demanding the recognition of 
the parental right to control the education of children ? 

The remarkable decision given some years ago by Dr. 
Hodge has been recently quoted with full approval by Dr. W. 
Montagu Geer, Episcopalian Vicar of St. Paul's Chapel, New 



York City. In this historic building, which is associated with 
the memories of George Washington's installation as first Presi- 
dent of the United States, Dr. Geer first voiced his convictions 
on the school question (September, igoi), shortly after the 
death of the late President McKinley. Speaking to the 
Sons of the American Revolution he used these significant 
words : 

This dreadful calamity looks very much like a visitation on 
us of the wrath of the Most High. We must get back to the 
guiding principles of our forefathers. There were two evils in 
our great country : first the sin of slavery, — that we have ex- 

ft 

piated and wiped out ; then the sin of intemperance, — that we 
can master and are mastering. ... Is there, then, any 
evil still in the land so widespread as to call down the wrath 
of God upon us ? There is. Our Godless system of education 
is a far worse crime than slavery or intemperance. I believe 
that the United States is suffering from the wrath of God to- 
day because our people have consented to the banishment of 
Jesus Christ from the daily lives of our children. If to-day 
Christ were on earth and should enter almost any public 
school-house in the country, the teacher, acting under instruc- 
tion, would show Him the door. If, on the other hand, He 
were to enter any of our private (parish) schools. He would be 
worshipped by teacher and scholars on bended knee. Here is 
our fault, here is our sin. The question now is, To what ex- 
tent can we remould and remodel our educational system ? 
Almost any system is better than the present one. It would 
be infinitely better to divide up the money received from the 
school tax among the various Christian denominations and the 
Hebrews than to continue the present irreligious system. 

After waiting two years for further study and reflection, 
Dr. Geer has again contributed to the discussion a notable 
letter published in the New York Sun, October i, 1903, which 
is here given in part : 

The writer has been surprised in conversation with intelli- 
gent and thoughtful men to find a marked want of confidence 
in the permanent success of our institutions. Like him, these 
doubters seem to be " peering into the night, questioning of 
the darkness what is sea and what is land." And the best 
they dare hope for is that, after a cataclysm, there will follow 



some sort of rehabilitation of our institutions on firmer founda- 
tions ; that we will be saved, yet so as by fire. 

Our perils are not old-country perils, but they are just as 
real; yet we seem to know nothing about them. We are build- 
ing costly educational breakwaters against storms coming from 
one direction only. Our national harbor of safety piomises, 
therefore, to be like that of Apia in the famous storm of a 
few years ago — a harbor in stress of weather to be sailed out 
from. 

We have problems of appalling magnitude before us, and 
our preparation is wholly insufficient in character. We need 
powers of assimilation such as no qther country ever needed; 
yet we are making ready for a solution of our difiticulties with 
a sort of spiritual dyspepsia. Nothing ever was so haphazard, 
happy-go-lucky as our well-meant national system of education. 
It is openly and, I believe, justly charged that this city, for 
fifty or sixty years past, through its schools, has been corrupt- 
ing the immigrants, not the immigrants the city ; and the same 
might be said with equal truth of the country at large. What 
crass mismanagement ! What fatal blundering ! 

We pride ourselves on our successful separation of Church 
and State; but the attempt is the worst kind of failure. No 
such separation is possible as long as the state has almost a 
monopoly in educating the children. The truth is, we have an 
established religion, for the support of which the people are 
heavily taxed. Our richly endowed established religion (so to 
call it) is that of agnosticism, running down into atheism. Is 
not the same true of religion in those families in which the father 
and mother never speak on the subject to the children ? And 
if things are wrong in the nursery, what need is there to look 
elsewhere ? 

Protestants, Roman Catholics, and Hebrews have struck a 
compromise by which God and Christ — yes, and with them 
pagan ethics at their best — are eliminated from the education 
of the child-life of the nation. What is the result ? Why, 
surely, the virtual enthronement of forces that disbelieve in 
God and Christ and are antagonistic to them. How can those 
who know what Christianity is and what the nature and needs 
of children are believe otherwise? There can be no education 
in these days without religion, or its negation or opposite. 
What an atmosphere to bring up our children in ! Small won- 



4 

der that atheists and agnostics love to have it so ; because in 
a most pitiful sense of the word the lamb is inside the lion. 

Rome allowed each conquered nation to retain its own re- 
ligion, and. even placed their gods in her Pantheon; and all 
were contented, or at least gratefully accepted the wisely ofifered 
consolation. But we are dishonoring every form of religion 
known to our people by our colossal and well-meant but wholly 
stupid meddling with the nursery of the nation. And the in- 
evitable result, which is becoming more and more evident, is 
that no one is satisfied. Witness the want of confidence so 
abundantly attested in the many letters which have recently ap- 
peared in your columns and, from time to time, in other news- 
papers and periodicals. The schools are overcrowded and very 
popular, of course ; but these facts are of little weight for the 
purposes of this and similar protests. 

We are over educating our people, unfitting them for what 
they can do, and not offering them the opportunities for which 
we are fitting them. What deplorable folly ! Small wonder, 
again, that farms are being deserted, farm laborers becoming 
harder and harder to get, cities and larger towns becoming more 
and more overcrowded, and the strife and distrust between 
capital and labor becoming apparently hopeless and endless — 
all to the great peril of the body politic ! 

What, then, is the right, the duty, and the policy of the 
state in this vitally important matter ? The situation calls loudly 
for an answer, which is easily given, hard, indeed, though it be 
to put it into practice. The state, for its own protection, is to 
see that the children are educated, and only to take action 
where it is necessary to do so, by providing the simplest, most 
elementary kind of an education for those children who would 
otherwise be neglected. If private enterprise carries education 
further than this, it will be on so small a scale, comparatively, 
that no serious harm is likely to be done. 

In this way an open field and no favor would be given to 
every religious body to provide proper education for its own 
children or take the consequences of its neglect of duty. Pri- 
vate schools, large and small, differing widely in dogmatic 
teaching, but identical in ethics and patriotism, would again 
spring up and multiply all over the land, and education would 
again be on a proper and safe basis. The children, or most 
of • them, would be Christianized as well as Americanized. 



Pagans might be instructed in pagan ethics ; Jews would be 
instructed in Jewish ethics; Protestants and Roman Catholics 
in Christian ethics. Every religious body would provide for 
the education of its own children; and the exceptions to this 
salutary rule would see their children state educated and made 
thereby the easy prey of some stronger form of religion, or 
the victim of agnosticism, indifferentism, or atheism and con- 
sequent immorality. 

This means division in part, at least, of the school moneys, 
and troublesome enough it is likely to prove; but it is Sailors' 
Snug Harbor in comparison with the stormy seas which we 
are now steering the ship of state for. 

The introduction of religion into state schools in any form 
commensurate with the needs of the children is out of the 
question. Herein lies the hopelessness of the present situa- 
tion ; and the sooner this point is understood and conceded 
by all parties interested the sooner this most important of all 
subjects before Church and State to-day can be argued to a 
finish. No Protestant, Roman Catholic, Jew, agnostic, or 
atheist is willing to be taxed to help some one else choose 
the religion which shall be taught his child. According to 
our theory of government, and we might say in the sight of 
God and men, this would not be fair; and therefore it cannot, 
and will not, be done. 

Here is the opportunity for Protestants of all kinds to cry 
aloud : " This would be playing into the hands of the Roman 
Catholics. It is what they have been demanding and working 
for, for many years past." Granted, but it would not be play- 
ing into their hands nearly as much as we are now doing by 
allowing them a substantial monopoly of the whole field of 
Christian education, and of all the blessings which are sure to 
flow from the noble self-sacrifice they are making, rather than 
wantonly expose their children to the inroads of unbelief. If 
the writer is not greatly mistaken, unless our affairs take a 
turn for the better in the sight of Him whose parting com- 
mission to His Church was "Feed my lambs!" (evidently the 
proper place for the lamb is not inside the lion, after all), for 
the rehabilitation of our institutions, we will be flying, as 
frightened doves to the windows, to the Roman Catholic 
Church as the greatest power which, in troublous days, will 
stand for law and order and for the highest morality. 



In common, doubtless, with many others who want the 
children of this country to receive good American fair play, 
be the creed of their parents what it may, I should be glad 
to see at least the attempt made to argue this question to a 
finish by the highest authorities on the various different sides. 

Dr. Geer's allusion to the frightened doves in troublous 
days had a singular application to an event which occurred 
the very day his letter appeared. It was reported that over 
three thousand persons paid an admission fee to attend the 
largest Anarchist meeting ever held, and that over a thousand 
more could not get into the hall. Emma Goldman sat on the 
platform throughout the evening, but did not speak, as the 
Cooper Union manager had allowed the use of the hall only 
upon this condition. The chief object of the meeting was to 
denounce all forms of religious belief, including Yom Kipper 
the Jewish atonement day, and the leading spirit was the edi- 
tor of a Hebrew anarchist paper published in New York City, 
Many of the socialist orators at numerous outdoor meetings 
can be heard in this same fair city ridiculing the doctrine of the 
future life, and leading the people astray. These threatening 
dangers seem to be unknown to the editorial writer in the 
Sim — October i — who acknowledged that Dr. Geer in his let- 
ter put " himself flatly on the ground held by the Roman 
Catholic Church as affording the only hope for the future of 
our republic and of our social organization — the ground that 
the only true and safe basis for education, either for the state 
or for the individual, is religion. He takes, too, the position 
of the hierarchy of that church, that the school fund, or a 
great part of it, should be divided so as to provide support 
for religious schools conducted in accordance with the varying 
tenets and convictions of the religious believers who make up 
something like a quarter of the population, if the attempts at 
their enumeration are to be credited as authentic. For the 
remainder, described by Dr. Geer as agnostics, indifferentists, 
and atheists, he would provide the purely secular education 
they desire." 

" So long as children go to school the state exer- 
cises no compulsion as to the character of the schools they 
shall attend. Many thousands of them in New York are pupils 
of the Roman Catholic (parish) schools, of schools provided by 



the Jews, or are in private schools.. The state offers no inter- 
ference with religious education of any kind whatever and no 
discouragement to it. 

" Dr. Geer argues that our society, even our whole political 
system, is going to the devil, is becoming paganized, because 
our children are growing up without a religious education. 
Ought not the churches and synagogues, then, to make it their 
first duty to supply this omission ? They must provide it, the 
constitution directs, without support from the state ; and is the 
burden of cost too heavy ? How can it be too heavy if the 
obligation is to God ? The churches are compelled to support 
their worship by free-will contributions only, except so far as 
concerns the help they get from the state in their statutory 
exemption from taxation as institutions exclusively for * the 
moral or mental improvement of men or women,' or for reli- 
gious, charitable, and educational purposes ; yet, enormous as 
is the aggregate cost of their maintenance, they flourish here 
more than in countries where state and church are united. 

" The practical question, after all, so far as concerns reli- 
gious education in the public schools, is as to the possibility 
of getting rid of this prohibition of the constitution of New 
York, in principle similar to that of the States generally, and 
the expediency of raising an agitation for its excision : 

"'Article IX, section 4. Neither the State nor any sub- 
division thereof shall use its property or credit or any public 
money, or authorize or permit either to be used, directly or 
indirectly, in aid or maintenance, other than for examination 
and inspection, of any school or institution of learning wholly 
or in part under the control or direction of any religious de- 
nomination, or in which any denomination, or in which any 
denominational tenet or doctrine is taught.' " 

On another occasion the editorial in the Sun — October 7 — 
contained these words : 

" It is not for the interest of the Roman Catholic Church 
or for the interest of religion generally that any such conflict 
should be precipitated. It would cause no end of bad blood. 
Correspondence we have printed indicates that any attempt to 
divert the school fund to denominational schools of any kind 
would be bitterly resented by Protestants, by Jews, and by 
that great majority of the people made up of infidels and those 
indifferent to religion or distrustful of the organized churches. 



" It would be a lamentable conflict, and our advice to the 
Roman Catholic Church is to keep out of it. The attempt, we 
are confident, would be unsuccessful, and the making of it could 
only serve to revive the now happily dispelled animosity 
against that church and distrust of its motives which inflamed 
passions so violently fifty years ago." 

However lamentable, the conflict is already forced upon all 
the defenders of Christian teaching by the non-religious anarch- 
ists, socialists, and nondescript free-thinkers. Numerous proofs 
can be adduced to show that the animosity of fifty years ago has 
gone never to come again, notably the letter from Dr. Geer, which 
no doubt represents many of the most enlightened members of 
the Episcopal Church in the United States. Other denomina- 
tions are on record with declarations of the same character. 

The late Cardinal Manning and his successor. Cardinal 
Vaughan, were often found side by side with their Anglican 
brethren defending the system by law established in England, 
which allows public money to be given for results of examina- 
tions in the secular branches of study, and which invites the 
co-operation of church- workers in the cause of public educa- 
tion. With us in the United States the parish school is barely 
tolerated, though it represents the constitutional rights of 
citizens who year after year have spent their own money, 
amounting to millions of dollars, here in New York City. No 
public official has ever proposed even a vote of thanks to these 
citizens, who should be classified at least as philanthropists in 
education. No educational report yet published in the city or 
State of New York has contained a distinct mention of the 
parish schools. The Regents are permitted to give honorable 
distinction to Catholic academies that win credit in public ex- 
aminations. But the parish school stands for the most impor- 
tant part of educational work, namely, the elementary studies 
for the children of the masses whose homes are often in the 
crowded tenement districts. 

The so-called "prohibition of the Constitution of New 
York" (Article IX., section 4) has these words: "Other than 
for examination and inspection," and it is important to state 
that there is considerable scope for a legal argument on the 
exact meaning of this expression, which must be taken in con- 
junction with the discussion that led to its acceptance. The 
words were not found in the amendment as first proposed by 



the defunct League for the Protection of American Institutions, 
which fostered several notorious bigots. What was chiefly in 
the mind of the constitutional convention had for its objective 
point the prohibition of the use of public money for any form 
of religious or denominational teaching, and some of the dele- 
gates were surprised to find after they had voted on the mat- 
ter that the choice of language was at least ambiguous, and 
might be twisted to mean something opposed to their convic- 
tions. It would seem that examination and inspection are 
clearly authorized by the constitution, even for schools " wholly 
or in part under the control or direction of any religious de- 
nomination." This examination must necessarily be limited to 
the secular studies required for intelligent citizenship. 

When the select committee appointed at the close of the 
last Legislature, containing five senators and seven members of 
Assembly, is prepared to listen to suggestions for improving 
the educational laws of New York State, there will be an ex- 
cellent opportunity to take up the question here suggested 
concerning the correct interpretation of Article IX., section 4, 
of the constitution. Mr. Geer and his powerful friends in the 
Episcopal Church may discover that there is still a way to 
enlarge the public system of education without discouragement 
to the advocates of religious training. By removing legal bar- 
riers certain antagonisms may be obliterated which are now 
kept alive by unjust discriminations. 

A long time ago, in the year 1841, when the Hon. John 
C. Spencer was Secretary of State and also ex- officio Superin- 
tendent of Public Schools, the Catholic citizens of New York 
City sent a memorial to the Legislature. With the approval 
of the illustrious Archbishop Hughes, it was stated that 
the managers of Catholic schools would " afTord every facility 
of visitation and inspection to the duly appointed agents of the 
State, to guard against abuses and render their schools in every 
respect free from objection; but no arrangement was efTected." 

Dr. Richard H. Clarke in his work on Catholic Bishops, vol. 
ii., page 109, is authority for the statement that the distinguished 
Secretary of State for Abraham Lincoln — then in Albany as gov- 
ernor of New York State — was almost as much abused for his 
advocacy of Catholic rights as Bishop Hughes himself, and nar- 
rowly escaped defeat in the election of 1841 on this account. 
Having promised the bishop not to lose sight of the school ques- 



lO 



tion in the approaching Legislature, Governor Seward, in his 
message of January 4, 1842, again presented the subject of the 
schools and school fund to the consideration of the Legislature, in 
the following paragraphs, which are well worthy of perpetuation : 

" It was among my earliest duties to bring to the notice of 
the Legislature the neglected condition of many thousand chil- 
dren, including a very large proportion of those of immigrant 
parentage, in our great commercial city ; a misfortune then sup- 
posed to result from groundless prejudices and omissions of 
parental duty. Especially desirous at the same time not to dis- 
turb in any manner the public schools, which seem to be effi- 
ciently conducted, although so many for whom they were es- 
tablished were unwilling to receive their instructions, I suggested, 
as I thought, in a spirit not inharmonious with our civil and 
religious institutions, that if necessary it might be expedient to 
bring those so excluded from such privileges into schools ren- 
dered especially attractive by the sympathies of those to whom 
the task of instruction should be confided. It has since been 
discovered that the magnitude of the evil was not fully known, 
and that its causes were very imperfectly understood. It will 
be shown in the proper report that twenty thousand children 
in the city of New York, of suitable age, are not at all in- 
structed in any of the public schools, while the whole number 
of the residue of the State, not taught in common schools, does 
not exceed nine thousand. What has been regarded as indi- 
vidual, occasional, and accidental prejudices, have proved to be 
opinions pervading a large mass, including at least one religious 
communion equally with all others entitled to civil tolerance — 
opinions cherished through a period of sixteen years, and ripened 
into a permanent conscientious distrust of the impartiality of the 
education given in the public schools. This distrust has been 
rendered still deeper and more alienating by a subversion ot 
precious civil rights of those whose consciences are thus offended. 

" Happily, in this, as in other instances, the evil is discov- 
ered to have had its origin no deeper than in a departure from 
the equality of general laws. ..." 

" This proposition to gather the young from the streets and 
wharves into the nurseries which the State, solicitous for her 
security against ignorance, has prepared for them, has some- 
times been treated as a device to appropriate the school funds 
to the endowment of seminaries for teaching languages and 



1 1 

faiths, and thus to perpetuate the prejudices it seeks to re- 
move ; sometimes as a scheme for dividing that precious fund 
among a thousand jarring sects, and thus increasing the re- 
ligious animosities it strives to heal; sometimes as a plan to 
subvert the prevailing religion and introduce one repugnant to 
the conscience of our fellow-citizens; while in truth it simply 
proposes, by enlightening equally the minds of all, to enable 
them to detect error wherever it may exist, and to reduce un- 
congenial masses into one intelligent, virtuous, harmonious, and 
happy people. 

" Being now relieved from all such misconceptions it pre- 
sents the questions whether it is wise and more humane to 
educate the offspring of the poor than to leave them to grow 
up in ignorance and vice ; whether juvenile vice is more easily 
eradicated by the Court of Sessions than by common schools ; 
whether parents have a right to be heard concerning the in- 
struction and instructors of their children, and taxpayers in 
relation to the expenditure of public funds; whether, in a re- 
publican government, it is necessary to interpose an indepen- 
dent corporation between the people and the schoolmaster ; and 
whether it is wise and just to disfranchiss an entire community 
of all control over public education, rather than suffer a part 
to be represented in proportion to its numbers and contribu- 
tions. Since such considerations are now involved, what has 
hitherto been discussed as a question of benevolence and of 
universal education, has become one of equal civil rights, religious 
tolerance, and liberty of conscience. We could bear with us, 
in our retiremsnt from public service, no recollection more 
worthy of being cherished through life than that of having 
met such a question in the generous and confiding spirit of 
our institutions, and decided it upon the immutable principles 
on which they are based." * 

May we hope that the New York Legislature of 1904 will 
approach this question with a larger wisdom, and a more ef- 
fective purpose to do justice to all classes of citizens ? Thou- 
sands of reputable taxpayers have not written any freak letters 
to the newspapers, but they hope that their claims may yet be 
fairly considered by impartial judges. After long waiting and 
much undeserved abuse, in the words of Dr. Geer, let us have 
" good American fair .play." 

'Assembly Documents, 1842, i, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13. 

L» of CJ» 



12 



CATHOLICS FAVOR FREE SCHOOLS. 

We wish to save the (public school) system by simply removing what it 
contains repugnant to the Catholic conscience — not to destroy it or lessen its 
influence. We are decidedly in favor of free public schools for all the children 
of the land, and we hold that the property of the state should bear the burden 
of educating the children of the state — the two great and essential principles of 
the system which endear it to the hearts of the American people. Universal 
suffrage is a mischievous absurdity without universal education ; and universal 
education is not practicable unless provided for at the public expense. While, 
then, we insist that the action of the state shall be subordinated to the law of 
conscience, we yet hold that it has an important part to perform, and that it is 
its duty, in view of the common weal, and of its own security as well as that of 
its citizens, to provide the means of a good common-school education for all its 
children. 

The state has no right to make itself a proselyting institution for or 
against Protestantism, for or against Catholicity. It is its business to protect 
us in the full and free enjoyment of our religion. . . . The case is one of 
conscience, and conscience is accountable to no civil tribunal. All secular 
authority and all secular considerations whatever must yield to conscience. In 
questions of conscience the law of God governs, not a plurality of voters. The 
state abuses its authority if it sustains the common schools as they are with a 
view of detaching our children from their Catholic faith and love. If Catho- 
lics cannot retain their Catholic faith and practice, and still be true, loyal, and 
exemplary American citizens, it must be only because Americanism is incom- 
patible with the rights of conscience, and that would be its condemnation. — 
(Dr. Orestes A. Brownson in the Catholic World Magazine, April, iSjo.) 



RELATIONS OF CHURCH AND STATE. 

Is it trne that according to Catholic teaching the State onght to be subject- 
to the CJiJirch? 

How can Catholics give this country an undivided allegiance ivhen they 
are subject to a foreign power ? 

The Catholic doctrine on the relations of Church and State are thus set 
forth in Leo Xlll.'s Encyclical on the Christian Constitution of States : 

"The Almighty, therefore, has appointed the charge of the human race 
between two powers, the ecclesiastical and the civil; the one being set over 
divine, the other over human things. Each in its kind is supreme. Each has 
fixed limits within which it is contained, which are defined by the nature and 
the special object of the province of each, so that there is, we may say, an 
orbit traced out within which the action of each is brought into play by its own 
native right ; but inasmuch as each of these two powers has authority over the 
same subjects, and as it might come to pass that one and the same thing 
might belong to the jurisdiction and determination of both, there- 



13 

fore God, who foresees all things and who is the Author of these two powers, 
has marked out the course of each in right correlation of the other. For the 
powers that are are ordained of God " (Rom. xiii. i). And further on he 
mirks clearly the connection: "One of the two has for its proximate and 
chief object the well-being of this mortal life ; the other, the everlasting joys 
of heaven. Whatever, therefore, in things human is of a sacred character, 
whatever belongs either of its own nature or by reason of the end to which it 
is referred, to the salvation of souls, or to the worship of God, is subject to the 
power and judgment of the Church. Whatever is to be ranged under the civil 
and political order is rightly subject to the civil authority. Jesus Christ has 
Himself given command that what is Ctesar's is to be rendered to Caesar, and 
what belongs to God is to be rendered to God" (Luke xx. 25). 

The Catholic Church teaches that no man's allegiance to the state is absolute 
and undivided, but must always be limited by conscience and the law of God. 

Patriotism— love for country in all things not opposed to the law of God — 
is with the Catholic not a mere caprice or emotional feeling, but a positive 
religious duty, commanded by Jesus Christ and His Apostles (Luke xx. 25 ; 
Rom. xiii. 1-4; L Pet. ii. 13-15). 

If the laws of the state go counter to Christianity, then of course the 
Catholic says with St. Peter, even though it mean death : " We ought to obey 
God rather than men" (Acts v. 29). Thus, frequently in the course of his- 
tory loyalty to Christ meant disobedience to a state that taught anti-Christian 
principles, or exacted obedience to an iniquitous law, as the sacrifice to the 
gods of pagan Rome in the early days of the Church, the attempt in England 
in penal days to enforce attendance at Protestant worship and to exact the 
denial of the Pope's supremacy in things spiritual, or the permission of divorce 
contrary to the Scriptures (Mark x. 2-12). — (From " The Questioti Box,'''' writ- 
ten by the Rev. B. L. Conway, C.S. P., published by the Catholic Book Exchange, 
120 West 60th Street, New York City.) 



WHAT THE PEOPLE ARE DOING FOR EDUCATION. 

While all forms of education may be under government control, yet 
government control of education is not exclusive, and the national system of 
education m the United States includes schools and institutions carried on 
without direct governmental oversight and support, as well as those that are 
maintained by public tax and administered by governmental agencies. 

Some very important consequences follow from the acceptance of this 
principle. A nation's life is much more than an inventory of its governmental 
activities. For example, the sum total of the educational activity of the 
United States is not to be ascertained by making an inventory of what 
the government — national, state, and local — is doing, but only by taking 
account of all that the people of the United States are doing, partly through 
governmental forms and processes and partly in non-governmental ways and 
by non-governmental systems. In other words, the so called public education 
of the United States, that which is tax-supported and under the direct control 
of a governmental agency, is not the entire national educational system. To 
get at what the people of the United States are doing for education and to 
measure the full length and breadth of the nation's educational system, we must 
add to public or tax-supported education all activities of similar kind that are 
carried on by private corporations, by voluntary associations and by individuals. 
The nation is represented partly by each of these undertakings, wholly by no 
one of them. The terms national and governmental are happily not con- 



14 

vertible in the United States, whether it be of universities, of morals, or of 
efficiency that we are speaking. 

This point is of far-reaching importance, for it has become part of the 
political jargon of our time that any undertaking to be representative of the 
nation must be one which is under governmental control. Should this view 
ever command the deliberate assent of a majority of the American people, our 
institutions would undergo radical changes and our liberties and right of 
initiative would be only such as the government of the moment might vouch- 
safe to us. But we are still clear-sighted enough to realize that our national 
ideals and our national spirit find expression in and through the churches, the 
newspaper press, the benefactions to letters, science, and art, the spontaneous 
uprisings in behalf of stricken humanity and oppressed peoples, and a hun- 
dred other similar forms, quite as truly as they find expression in and through 
legislative acts and appropriations, judicial opinions and administrative orders. 
The latter are governmental in form and in effect ; the former are not. Both 
are national in the sense that both represent characteristics of the national life 
and character. — (Fro77i address by Dr. Nicholas Mitrtay Butler before the Uni- 
vei'sity Com'ocatioti, Albany, N. Y., June, igo2.) 



RELIGION THE FOUNDATION OF EDUCATION. 

'Yyiy. Freeman's Journal (July ii, 1903) is responsible for the statement 
that about fifty years ago the Rev. Dr. De Lancey, Protestant Episcopal 
Bishop of Western New York, delivered an address, in which he clearly stated 
and strongly advocated the principle which should govern Christian parents in 
the education of their children. It is the same principle which Catholics have 
been advocating during all those years, and have put in practice, so far as 
their means enabled them. Here is what he said : 

By parish or church schools, we mean the identification of religion, as the 
Church holds it, with education; educating our children as children of the 
Church ; providing each large parish, if possible, with a school of its own, 
where the children connected with it may be taught by competent, religious 
teachers connected with the Church, who will make religion, as the Church 
holds it, not only the basis of all instruction, but the pervading principle and 
influence running through all its parts and progress, imbuifig the mind with 
the knowledge of it, warming the heart with the love of it, and moulding the 
intellect and habits to its devotions, doctrines, liturgy, and usages. 

Some, you know, hold that religion and education should stand apart 
from each other. Others teach that morality only should be allied to educa- 
tion. Others, again, that only a general and abstract view of religion should 
be associated with education. Others, again, put forth their views in the 
form that education is to be unchurched. Education without a chwrch is 
the principle claimed, and avowed to be the right principle. 

In opposition to such views, the true theory of the Bible and the Church 
is, that religion is the foundation of all sound education ; that the God who 
gave the mind should govern the mind; that the expansion and training of 
the intellect should ever be according to and in association with His laws, 
influence, and grace ; that to mould the intellectual habits without reference 
to the Deity and His laws, His institutions, and His spirit, is in direct hostility 
to man's true interest, duty, and responsibility ; and hence, that over the 
union of religion with education, we are bound to pronounce with solemn 
declaration : What God hath joined together, let no man put asunder. 

Now, this can only be carried out by Church schools and Church colleges, 
which shall unite, avowedly, religious instruction with literary instruction. 



'5 



PARISH SCHOOLS AND THE NEW YORK CONSTITUTION. 

No small degree of moral courage was needed for Dr. Geer, the vicar of 
St. Paul's Chapel, New York City, to publish his recent letter in the Sun. 
How far he may claim the sanction of his superior officers in the 
Episcopal Church for his statement on the school question, it is not easy to 
conjecture. Perhaps he may have had an approving word from Dr. Dix, 
rector of Trinity Church. As yet no other Episcopalian of equal standing 
has ventured to challenge the assertions of Dr. Geer in regard to the need of 
religion in the schools. For a time he may find himself in the minority with 
Bishop Potter, and his latitudinarian friends in the majority. But it is to 
be hoped that his courage will not fail, and that he will be forced to form 
some sort of an organization that can secure the best legal advice concerning 
the State Constitution, and thus co-operate with his Catholic fellow-citizens. 

Some of the letters written to the Sicn in answer to Dr. Geer show that 
there is a great lack of clear thinking, together with a large ignorance of t,he 
facts relating to the work of parish schools. The man from Trenton who 
threatened to take down his "old musket and fight" for the public-school 
system, just as it is with all its acknowledged imperfections, was unworthy of 
a place on the editorial page of the Sun, and certainly very unfit to associate 
with other citizens willing to reason together for the common good of the 
American Republic. 

The editorial writer in the ^;^« has failed to make the distinction, though 
pointed out to him several times, between secular and religious instruction, 
and that the state can pay for instruction in the secular branches and can pay 
for nothing else. If a man is hired to plough a field he may pray as much as 
he pleases during the work. He then gets his pay, not for the praying but 
for the p'oughing. And as long as he does the work for which he is paid, the 
Constitution of New York State will not allow him to be denied honest com- 
pensation for his labor on account of his religious views. 

Now, if the parish school or any private school gives the secular educa- 
tion contemplated by the state it is obviously just to claim compensation, and 
the state has no business or concern with what may be added over and above 
to meet the reasonable demands of parents. In the pamphlet issued last 
January by a committee representing the Catholic School Board of New "Sork, 
the case was clearly stated in these words: 

"In presenting our claim to fair-minded citizens, it is assumed as a 
starting point that the parish schools can and ought willingly to provide for 
the entire expense of imparting religious instruction. Among reasonable ' 
people a basis of agreement can also be made on equitable terms by which 
these parish schools^ — without losing their autonomy — may co-operate with 
any Board of Education in the teaching of the secular studies prescribed for 
citizenship. The managers, according to this plan, legally transfer the con- 
trol of the secular studies to a board, authorized by the state, when they con- 
sent to accept the public standard of examination and inspection. Between 
Church and State the present relations could be continued without friction, 
by granting this equitable demand for recognition, together with payment for 
results, strictly limited to the teaching of the secular studies. To pay for the 
teaching of arithmetic or other similar studies does not bring the state outside 
of its bounden duty to provide for representation as well as for taxation. 
Phantom objections, from bygone bigots, may be placed in evidence, but it is 
to be hoped that sound thinkers will now give serious consideration to the real 
facts of the case. The American principle of fair play and no favor can be 




i6 , 029 502 175 



applied to remove, in part at least, the unjust burden imposed upon the 
patrons of parish schools. 

" Another important claim is in the fact that this arduous work of training 
the young in Christian virtue is an immense advantage to the state. It leads 
to the highest type of citizenship and supplies a most effective antidote to false 
socialistic theories. Surely, a public recognition of the voluntary efforts of 
parents to educate their own children would not demand a union of Church 
and State. It would require only an act of long-delayed justice to indicate 
grateful appreciation of the loyal citizens whose millions of dollars are spent 
in the support of parish schools. Public thanks are given to other citizens for 
gifts representing much less total expenditure, and of much less value to the 
public welfare." 

The statement above quoted removes at once many erroneous impressions, 
and. gives a satisfactory basis for discussion. Among intelligent citizens there 
should be a willingness to consider any claim founded on justice. Such a 
procedure is followed in all other matters, and why should the Stm raise the 
cry of alarm by asking : 

"Now, is it advisable for that (the Catholic) Church or for any other to 
force this question before the people ?" . 

" It is not for the interest of the Roman Catholic Church, or for the inter- 
est of religion generally, that any such conflict should be precipitated. It 
would cause no end of bad blood." ... 

" It would be a lamentable conflict, and our advice to the Roman Catholic 
Church is to keep out of it." . 

It is true that this question has been brought into considerable prominence 
during the past year, and the responsibility for precipitating the conflict should 
be placed where it belongs, and that is not upon the Catholic Church. This 
conflict was precipitated by the present State Superintendent of Public Instruc- 
tion of the State of New York, who distinctly announced in his last annual 
report that hereafter he would reverse the common law of the State, which 
has hitherto prohibited religious instruction in the public schools, whenever 
objection was made thereto. By this edict Mr. Skinner virtually declares it 
his purpose to make the public tax-supported schools sectarian. If the 
"lamentable conflict" is on, the present State Superintendent of Public 
Instruction is responsible for it, not the Catholic Church, and this fact should be 
fully understood. — {From the New York Freeman's Journal, October 24, 1903.) 



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Have you seen the latest pamphlet dealing with the moral teach- 
ing of the New York State Superintendent of Public 
Instruction ? It is entitled : 



Skinnef vepsas 

Washington 

WRITTEN BY THE 

Reverend James J. Fox, D.D. 



A logical and concise summary of the principles of true 
education, and of the necessary connection between religion 
and morality. Particularly valuable for all who would write or 
speak on religious, educational, or social questions. 

The problem before the educators of America is not the 
merely academic one of settjiing, speculatively, the relations of 
religion and morality, either historically or empirically, nor 
how to teach this, that, or another moral ideal. There is one 
particular moral ideal established in the minds of the people, as 
a whole, and serving both as the foundation of our national life 
and as the recognized standard of worthy citizenship. It is the 
ideal which has created the moral spirit of the air we breathe, 
which has established our ethical code ; which reigns over even 
those who theoretically reject, or fancy they reject, its author- 
ity. In a word, it is Christian morality that is understood by 
everybody, when the question of teaching morality is raised as 
a living issue. Hence to separate morality and religion in 
American education is neither more nor less than to undertake 
to teach the morality of the Gospel independently of its reli- 
gion. 

Price (postage prepaid) 5 cents a copy. 

Order from the Catholic Book Exchange, 
1 20 Sixtieth Street West, 

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